Man gets ration card 15 days after malnutrition kills daughter

Gurunath Savar shows the ration that was personally delivered to him by a DSO officer on Wednesday.
(Machindra Agiwale)

It took 20 years, and the loss of his two-year-old daughter, for Gurunath Savar, a resident of Petranjani village in Wada taluka, Palghar district, to get a ration card. To his astonishment, an officer from the District Supply Office (DSO) personally visited his hamlet on Wednesday to deliver the ration card.

Savar claimed that he received the card within a fortnight of Roshin’s death, who succumbed to malnutrition while being rushed to the Thane civil hospital on September 9.

He said, “We admitted her to a local hospital on August 12, as she weighed just 6.5 kg. She responded well to the treatment and gained weight following which she was discharged on August 25. Nurses told me to bring her back for a check-up after a fortnight.”

Speaking to HT, Roshni’s mother Mamta said, “Her health failed on 5 September and we rushed her to the Wada rural hospital, where she was given drips to improve her condition. However, some kind of fluid started oozing out of her mouth and nose. Alarmed by the situation, doctors asked us to immediately shift her to Thane civil hospital. But she died before we reached the hospital.”

Savar, a farmhand, said though he will now be able to at least feed the rest of the family using government supplies, which he can now purchase at a subsidised price, Roshni’s name will never feature in the list of family members on the ration card.